


Sergeant Duffy Finds Out

by Neverever



Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: American History, Captain America - Freeform, Gen, Reminiscing, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 00:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20826470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: Sergeant Duffy had to find out sometime the truth about Captain America, didn't he?





	Sergeant Duffy Finds Out

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr.

His wife gave him the invitation from the American History Museum while Duffy watched the Cubs lose to the Cardinals. He barely glanced at the invitation because he had the more important job of yelling at the absolute disgrace of an umpire on the screen. Years of being an Army drill sergeant had given him the skills needed.

“Mike, are you going to open that?” Bridget asked. 

“Fine,” he muttered. He ripped open the envelope. He sat up straight, the game forgotten. “It’s a reunion. For the Camp Lehigh soldiers. In D.C.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! We can stay with Debbie and her husband.”

In the two minutes it took for Sergeant Michael Duffy, US Army, retired, to re-read the invitation, Bridget his wife of forty-five years and mother of his three children had planned out their entire visit to D.C. from flight from Chicago to daughter Debbie’s house in Alexandria to back again. “I wonder if Donna should come with us -- to help out,” Bridget mused.

Bridget wasn’t going to let Mike forget that pesky heart attack he’d had two years ago. He’d lived through worse whipping green recruits into good Army men before, during, after the war. He even managed to make that god awful Steve Rogers into a soldier.

Cripes, forty years after the war, Rogers still gave him the heebie-jeebies when he remembered that gold-bricking, shit-eating grinning disaster. Rogers never even caught on to how to peel potatoes correctly after the hours and hours of KP. 

God rest that pitiful man’s soul. Rogers never came back for that trunk he’d left behind at Camp Lehigh when he’d been shipped out to Europe. Duffy knew what that meant. Everyone knew what that meant. The trunk had been sent to a headquarters somewhere else and Duffy prayed that Rogers was better at peeling potatoes in heaven. Though he knew in his heart that Roger’s half-peeled messes were ruining the buffets in hell.

~~~~~

“Oh, this is fancy,” Bridget said as they were ushered into the American History Museum. “Do you think that President Reagan will be here?”

“No, it’s not that big of a deal,” Duffy said.

Duffy hadn’t yet seen anyone he personally knew. “I think that’s Dum-dum Dugan over there,” he said to Bridget. He pointed out other people in the crowd who might be Howling Commandos. 

“Is that Jacqueline Falsworth over there?” Bridget said. All Duffy could guess was that Falsworth was some famous person Bridget read about in her gossip pages.

“Am I imagining this crap?” Duffy said to Sullivan sitting on the other side. He’d met up with good ol’ Sully when they were seated. They were the last remaining sargeants from Camp Lehigh. Duffy could count on one hand the Lehigh people he’d seen so far.

Sullivan said, “Nah. What the hell is this?”

“Isn’t this a new exhibit? Anniversary of Captain America jazz?”

He and Sully had been seated in the front row of chairs set out in a hall of the museum. The area had been roped off with tight security surrounding the area. There was a podium, which meant boring speeches. Beyond the podium was a red ribbon stretched across closed doors. “That’s what the invite said.”

“Yeah. But can you believe all the brass here? The joint chiefs of staff?”

Duffy looked around the hall, seeing all the uniformed officers and top brass of all the services in the audience, an odd man in a eye-patch next to Dugan, and a few women who appeared to be important.

“I bet that they tell us who Captain America was,” Sully said.

“Hah,” Duffy snorted. “Captain America was a dozen different different men. Ain’t no way he was one man.”

“You’ve been saying that since 42.”

“Ain’t been proved wrong yet,” Duffy said proudly. He read the many many books about Captain America over the years and no one knew who the real man was behind the mask. A true damn America hero, the Captain. Couldn’t have won the war without him.

A man in a suit walked up to the podium, not all that obviously the museum director. He tapped on the microphone. “Today is the 40th anniversary of the disappearance of Captain America. We are honored to have as our guests people who knew him -- Peggy Carter, well-known as Agent 13, Sergeant Michael Duffy ….”

Not that Duffy would say that he ever knew Captain America personally. He’d seen the hero many times leaving or returning from missions. That was it.

Polite clapping from the audience as the director continued his brief history of the famed Captain. Duffy knew the story by heart. Big thing for Camp Lehigh, his home for many many years until the decommissioning in the late 50s, to be the birthplace of Captain America.

“Since 1941 the identity of Captain America has been a classified military secret. On this 40th anniversary, we are opening a new exhibit dedicated to the late Captain America and his career and life.”

The crowd grew silent and tense. Sully and Bridget were sitting up alert in their seats. 

“I have the great honor to announce that Captain America’s identity has been de-classified and now we can finally reveal the man behind the shield. Steve Rogers was --”

Duffey leapt to his feet, despite the arthritis and television cameras, as forty years of secrets were swept away and the true identity of Captain America sunk in. He’d been played for an idiot for forty years. “THAT SON-OF-A-BITCH ROGERS.”


End file.
